


Golazo

by ikeracity



Series: football verse [2]
Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - Football, Established Relationship, Fluff, M/M, Marriage Proposal, Soccer Aid
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-12
Updated: 2014-06-12
Packaged: 2018-02-04 10:28:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,191
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1775809
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ikeracity/pseuds/ikeracity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The surprise isn't that Rest of the World beats England handily in Soccer Aid 2014. The surprise comes after.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Golazo

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Pangea](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pangea/gifts).



> AU where currently active footballers play in Soccer Aid, AU where World Cup isn't in 2014 for some handwavy reason or else Charles and Erik would've been with their national teams. Based on [this](http://ikeracity.tumblr.com/post/88207518904/james-mcavoy-of-the-rest-of-the-world-and-olly), with a _perfect_ [manip](http://ikeracity.tumblr.com/post/88415822899/cakeis-for-ikeracity-x-cake-how-are-you) from cakeis.

Erik’s already awake before the alarm goes off at six in the morning, just as the first rays of sunlight start to creep in through the half-open curtains drawn over the window. He lies there for a few minutes just listening to Charles breathe lightly into his shoulder, his arms wrapped around Erik’s torso, one leg thrust between Erik’s and twisted around the bottom of the blanket. All these years together and Erik is still surprised at how they fall asleep nestled loosely together and then wake up twisted around each other like a pair of koalas. It still makes his heart give a strange little twist in his chest.

The clock on the nightstand clicks to 6:00 on the display and begins to beep shrilly. “No,” Charles grumbles immediately without opening his eyes, moving only to bury his face further into Erik’s shoulder. He has never been a morning person, no matter how many years they’ve been waking up at dawn to make it to morning training sessions.

Erik frees one hand to reach over and hit the snooze button before shaking Charles’ shoulder gently. “Come on, we have to get up.”

“No, leave me be.”

Ignoring him, Erik tosses off the blanket and untangles their legs. As he sits up, Charles slides off his shoulder with a groan and reburies his face into the pillow, his brow crinkling. “Come on,” Erik says, yanking the pillow away. “It’s match day, we can’t be late.”

He isn’t particularly frustrated when Charles doesn’t respond: Charles always drags himself up once he realizes Erik won’t be tempted back to bed anyway. So Erik stands and picks up his boxers from the armchair by the window where they’d tossed all their clothing last night. Slipping them on, he heads to the bathroom to relieve himself and to splash some water on his face.

By the time he’s brushed his teeth and shaved, Charles is finally stumbling out of bed bleary-eyed. His morning routine is noticeably less involved and careful than Erik’s, consisting of throwing on clothes, brushing teeth, and glancing once in the mirror to make sure nothing seems horribly out of place. He claims that it’s a habit he picked up during college, where he’d cared less about his appearance and more about getting to class on time. Erik finds it alternately exasperating and amusing.

This morning, he has to pull Charles back as he tries to walk out the door with the back of his hair sticking up in all directions and possibly trying to escape from his skull. With a jaw-cracking yawn, Charles holds obligingly still as Erik combs his hair into submission. “What time is it?” he asks, rubbing his eyes. “How late are we?”

“Only 6:25. We’re not late yet.”

“Oh, good. What time to we have to be in the lobby again?”

“6:40.”

“Plenty of time then.”

“Don’t lie down,” Erik warns him sternly as Charles ambles off to sit down on the edge of the bed. “You know you’ll just fall asleep again.”

Charles waves him off dismissively. “I know, I know.”

As he pulls on his shoes, Erik hunts around for their key cards, makes sure his bag has all his equipment, and zips it up tidily. The room is still littered with evidence of their stay: clothes flung here and there, toothbrushes left on the bathroom sink, a couple of dog-eared novels on the nightstand. They’ll have to pack tonight if they’re going to catch their ride back to London tomorrow morning and be back in time to pick Raven, Azazel, and Kurt up from the airport. He has to remember to remind Charles to figure out the flight number so they can track it before it lands.

“Ready?” he asks as Charles finishes lacing up his shoes.

“Almost.” Standing, he walks over to the dresser to pick up his watch and then turns around, tugs Erik’s head down, and kisses him, long and slow and sweet. Automatically, Erik curls his hand around the back of Charles’ neck to pull him closer, closing his eyes as they both press forward. It’s relatively chaste for an open-mouthed kiss, but Charles ends it with a swipe of his tongue along Erik’s lower lip that leaves Erik short of breath and wide-eyed.

“What was that for?” he asks as Charles pulls away.

“For luck,” Charles replies cheekily. “You’re going to need it.”

Erik arches an eyebrow. “If anyone’s going to be needing luck, it’s you.”

Charles shoots him a skeptical look. “You do realize England has a better record than Rest of the World does.”

“Maybe,” Erik admits, smiling smugly. “But _you_ realize Rest of the World’s got me this year.”

That prompts a full-bodied laugh out of Charles that lights up his face and chases the last lines of drowsiness away. “I’m going to wipe that shit-eating grin off your face when I score on you,” he says as he collects his cleats from the corner of the room and tosses them into his bag. “We’ll see who’ll be needing the luck then.”

Erik’s grin only widens. “I look forward to it.”

 

*

 

Old Trafford is familiar, crowded, and noisy. Physically, not much is different from the last time Erik had been here in 2011 for the FA Cup, where they’d lost to Man U in a pretty dismal match for Arsenal. But this time, Charles is on the pitch by his side, grinning delightedly as he waves up at the stands of fans and flashing cameras. It’s hard to believe that only three years ago, when Erik had last been in Old Trafford, Charles had been lying at home in bed, still recovering from the accident that had nearly destroyed his career. The smiling, joyous Charles who bounds around on the field like an overgrown puppy is a far cry from the pale, sallow-faced Charles Erik had brought home from the hospital to nurse and coax and drag back to life.

They’ve come a long way since then, Erik thinks, idly stroking his thumb along the metal clasp of the box in his pocket. He’s sure his affection must be written all over his face as he watches Charles running around giddily snapping photos on his phone like he’s never seen the inside of a football stadium in his life.

He’s going to get to spend the rest of his life with Charles. He’s going to get to play beside Charles at the club they both love and go home afterwards and kiss him until they’re both breathless and dizzy and have wild sex with him everywhere in the house and wake up with Charles plastered to him, every morning for the rest of the foreseeable future. It’s a heady, heady feeling.

He’s been selected to start, as has Charles. Seeing Charles on the same field in an opposing jersey is strange, to say the least, but the cocky grin Charles flashes him as the referee blows the starting whistle isn’t unfamiliar in the slightest. He shoots Charles an arrogant look he knows will get Charles’ blood boiling and grins when Charles’ eyes narrow. Charity game or not, he can sense he’s in for a rough match.

The first half is mostly quiet and uneventful, aside from Jose Mourinho’s brief pitch invasion from the sidelines. Charles spends most of it sending pinpoint crosses up the field toward England’s strikers, trying to poke past a good ball they can latch onto. With Erik playing as deep as he is, he and Charles don’t have much opportunity to face off, so mostly he admires the accuracy of Charles’ passes and waits for an opportunity to wipe that grin off Charles’ face.

Halftime in the locker room is relaxed and weary. Erik’s not quite winded, though several of the celebrities on the team are. They’re subbed off quickly enough, while Erik stays on for the second half. As Mourinho doles out last-minute instructions, Erik discreetly checks his jacket pocket in his locker, his pulse picking up as his hand closes around the velvet box inside. Pulling it out, he waits until Mourinho’s finished with his speech before crossing the locker room to where Logan’s unlacing his left boot.

“Hey,” he says as he notices Erik approach. “You’re not doing your job out there, Lehnsherr. I expected a hat trick from you by now.”

“I don’t take advice from retired footballers,” Erik tells him. When Logan raises an eyebrow and takes a swipe at him, he dodges with a grin. “How’s your ankle?”

Logan lifts his left foot and grimaces. “Not the best. Getting older sucks. Gonna have to sit out the second half.”

“Sorry,” Erik says, though he can’t find it in himself to feel too sympathetic because this actually works out well for him. “Listen, since you’re on the bench, could you hold onto something for me?”

Logan eyes him. “If I say yes, I’ll regret it, won’t I?”

“It’s for Charles.”

His wary look eases slightly. “Ok, what?”

Wordlessly, Erik holds out the box. He’s half-surprised the velvet on its surface hasn’t worn away with how obsessively he’s been handling it these last few days. It hasn’t strayed far from his side since he’d bought it last week, after having skulked through a dozen stores searching for the perfect ring. He’s woken up from the same nightmare two nights in a row where he’d dropped the ring and watched helplessly as it bounced into the street, right into incoming traffic where an enormous monster truck had crushed it.

Needless to say, he has more than his fair share of misgivings about entrusting the ring to Logan, but he won’t have time to dart down to the locker room to retrieve it after the match and besides, Logan would probably take a headfirst dive off a thirty-story building before ruining anything for Charles. Charles has an odd way of inspiring fiercely loyal friendship like that.

Logan takes the box slowly. “This is…”

“If you lose it, if there’s a dent on it when I take it back, if it’s even _shifted_ a little in the box—”

“Yeah, yeah, you’ll club me to death with your cleats.” Logan pops it open and whistles lowly. “Pretty. You planning on popping the question after the match?”

“Sort of.” At Logan’s questioning glance, he explains, “We already talked about it a couple of weeks ago and he said yes. But it wasn’t a fancy occasion or anything—” They had, in fact, been naked and drowsy from having a round of deliciously slow sex on the couch after dinner. “—so he told me I could propose properly later.”

“So you’re doing it now.”

Erik shrugs. “He always said he wanted to get married on a football pitch. I only need you to hold onto it until after the final whistle.”

“How incredibly romantic.” Though Logan’s tone is dry as usual, there’s an edge of fondness in his expression as he snaps the box shut and closes his fingers around it. “I’ll keep it safe.”

“Thanks.”

An attendant ducks into the locker room to summon them back out for the second half before Erik can say anything more, so he claps Logan on the shoulder, takes a long swallow from his water bottle, and reties his boots before heading back out to the tunnel.

The second half opens with a bang. Clarence Seedorf finds the net only two minutes after the whistle, curling a beautiful shot right past the keeper’s gloves. The stadium erupts in a roar, and Seedorf is mobbed by his teammates in front of the goal. Erik races over, too, to slap Seedorf on the back, and when he tilts a smug look over to Charles, who’s standing by the half-line with his hands on his hips, Charles only rolls his eyes and grins.

The next forty-five minutes are as fast-paced as the first were slow. The ROW defense is relatively good for an amateur side and their midfield is adept at catching balls and redirecting them in the opposite direction, so Erik does a lot of running after questing crosses. Closing on the 70th minute, Nicky Byrne puts ROW two ahead, which melts Charles’ genial smile off soon enough. He’s kind and polite and perfectly mannered off the field, but on the pitch, it doesn’t take much to turn on his competitiveness, like flipping on a switch. Erik is endlessly fascinated by how different Charles is when he’s frustrated in a match: he tackles riskily, he jockeys for the ball as if he’s a foot taller than he actually is, and he’s aggressive in a way that seriously turns Erik on.

That thought calls to mind a memorable encounter in the locker rooms of Emirates Stadium after a terrible loss to Liverpool this last February. Charles had been angry at the loss, mostly at himself. He gets into funks after steep defeats, and though he gets over them quickly, it’s still not that pleasant to be in his presence directly after a bad match. Or, rather, it’s not that pleasant for anyone but Erik, who sometimes thinks he can still feel the bruises Charles left on him after the Liverpool loss, scattered down his neck and curving around his hips in the shapes of fingers.

“Lehnsherr! _Lehnsherr!”_

He snaps out of his daze to find that Charles has flashed past him, ball on his feet. Fuck.

Only six minutes after Byrne’s goal, Jamie Redknapp cuts ROW’s lead in half, and Erik can hear Charles’ whoop from across the field as he charges over to join the England dog pile. He’s smiling brilliantly and alive with exhilaration and Erik’s whole weight seems to lift as he watches. God, he loves Charles, so fucking much.

“Hey!” Logan roars from the sidelines. “Lehnsherr! Get your fucking head together!”

Opposing teams. Charles the enemy. Right.

With the goal, Erik drops back to help shore up the defensive effort, which crosses his path with Charles’. Charles’ strengths are his agility and his excellent passing accuracy, both of which Erik knows very well. He’s been playing alongside Charles for so long he can practically read Charles’ mind, so each time Charles tries to feint past him, Erik blocks his efforts neatly. Despite his best efforts, England still ties it up with a penalty from Kevin Phillips, and as they bring the ball back to the half-line, Charles jogs past Erik with a cheeky grin and says, “Bet you’re wishing you’d taken that luck this morning.”

Erik shoves his shoulder. “Oh, shut up.”

Charles is the poster boy of speaking too soon because Seedorf slams two more goals in with barely any fuss and just like that, Rest of the World is on top 4-2 with only minutes to spare. Charles’ smile has morphed into a frown of concentration, and he pushes forward recklessly, getting sloppier as he always does when he lets his frustration get the better of him. Erik is amused by it, right up until Charles takes a careless touch, tries to make up for it by leaping to recover the ball, and ends up slamming straight into Edgar Davids. They both go sprawling into the grass, and Davids bounces up without hesitation, already calling for a penalty. But Charles doesn’t get up, just lies there, his chest heaving.

Erik is pretty sure his heart stops. He’s not conscious of moving, but the next thing he knows, he’s sliding to his knees beside Charles, who’s gingerly sitting up with the help of Olly Murs.

“Hey,” he says, breathless, scanning Charles up and down for obvious injury. “Are you ok? What’s wrong?”

Charles grimaces. “I’m all right. Just took a knock to the knee.”

Erik’s gaze zeroes in on his right knee. He’s bleeding a bit from the collision, but it doesn’t appear to be serious. Still, Erik glares at him and says, “Be _careful_ , you idiot. Can you stand up?”

“No, I think—can you get a physio?”

The medical team is already on their way over, armed with their bags and ice packs. Erik is forced back as they surround Charles, but he hovers close enough to hear the initial diagnosis, which sounds promising. Nothing bad, will probably just leave Charles with a bruise and some scrapes, nothing permanent.

The relief that swells up in Erik’s chest makes it hard to breathe for a moment. Charles can call him overprotective all he wants, but ever since the accident, the last thing Erik wants in the world is to see Charles laid up in a hospital bed, ever again. If that means he fusses over Charles more than their team doctors do sometimes, then so be it.

They lever Charles to his feet, Erik ducking underneath his left arm as a physio takes the other side. “I’m fine,” Charles insists as Erik’s grip around him tightens. And he does seem to be all right: his limp isn’t too bad and it’s lessening as they walk him toward the sidelines. But still, it looks like Sam Allardyce is going to pull him from the field as a precaution, and rightfully so; Arsene Wenger would be pissed beyond imagining to hear that one of his star players ruined his knee on a _charity_ match, of all things.

Erik helps deposit Charles on the England bench and then steps back as the physios resume their work. He has to get back to the game, so he just touches Charles’ shoulder before jogging back onto the pitch, forcing away the distraction of Charles’ gaze on him as the sound of the whistle restarts play.

There’s not much time left on the clock after that, and the match ends with the scoreline of 4-2, in favor of ROW. Yelling in triumph, they bound around the field as if they’ve just won a Champions League final, pouring champagne over each other and stripping off their shirts to turn backwards. The elation of winning any match, even a friendly one like this, fills Erik from head to toe, and when he searches for Charles along the bench and finds him standing normally and grinning, his heart swells, even as a sliver of nervousness begins to worm through his gut.

_He’s already said yes,_ he reminds himself. Nothing to worry about, nothing at all.

Stealing a full champagne bottle, he darts over to Logan, who’s crowded with the others near the center of the pitch. There must be something wild and eager in his face because Logan just presses the box into his palm with a grin and says, “Don’t fuck this up, Lehnsherr.”

“I’ve been telling myself that all week,” he mutters, gripping the box so tightly the hinge digs painfully into his fingers.

Charles beams as he nears and walks gingerly over to wrap his arms around Erik’s neck. “Congratulations,” he says, pressing a discreet kiss under Erik’s ear. “You know you only won because I wasn’t there to even the score.”

“Right. If it makes you feel better to believe that, I won’t stop you.”

“Oh, shut up, you.”

Erik grins. “How’s your knee?”

Charles glances down at it. “A little sore but a bit of rest and I should be good as new.”

“Good. Wenger would’ve had your head if you’d gotten seriously hurt.” They’d had to leap through dozens of hoops to get permission to play for Soccer Aid in the first place, and if they had to call Wenger with news of an injury, he’d probably lock them in a padded room to preserve their fitness and only let them out for bathroom breaks until the next season started.

“Good thing it’s not serious then,” Charles replies. “Though I imagine we’ll still get a scolding if he’s been watching the match.”

“ _You’ll_ get a scolding, you reckless idiot.”

“I can’t help that I want to win! Everyone wants to win. Speaking of winning—” He grabs for the champagne bottle in Erik’s hand. “Did you come over here to gloat or to invite me to the celebration? Either way, I’d like some alcohol please.”

“Actually,” Erik says, yanking the champagne bottle away, “this is for something else.”

His sly smile gives Charles pause. “What?”

His blue eyes are narrowed with confusion, his lips pressed together and his brow furrowed. Staring at him, Erik’s struck with the obvious realization that _this is it._ Weeks of daydreaming of this moment and it’s here and he’s suddenly, horrifically tongue-tied. He can’t speak for a few seconds out of sheer, pulsing terror, but the lump in his throat miraculously passes as soon as Charles reaches out in concern and asks, “Erik, you all right?”

“Fine,” he says breathlessly, tucking the champagne bottle into the crook of Charles’ arm. “Hold onto that.”

“Ok…”

“Don’t say anything either. Let me say the speech, because I wrote a speech.”

Charles is always quick to catch on, sometimes maddeningly so. His eyes shoot open wide, and he nearly drops the bottle. “ _Erik…_ don’t tell me…”

He drops to a knee and takes a breath. For a split second, his mind goes frighteningly blank—and then he starts talking, spilling out words he’s rehearsed so many times he could rattle them off in his sleep. “I remember the day we met at that football camp in Madrid and you were this scrawny little kid who talked too much and tried to make friends with everybody. I hated you because you beat me in that penalty shootout practice we did and I tied knots in the laces of your boots that night, so tightly you couldn’t pry them apart. You had to sit there with a safety pin for an hour to get them all out but you didn’t say anything to the adults, even though I know you knew I did it. And then you spent that entire afternoon destroying me in all the practices we had.”

Charles is laughing, his eyes wet. “Yeah, I did.”

“And I hated you even more for it, and then somehow before the camp ended, we became friends. Our first kiss was exactly three years and sixty-eight days later and I wrote three hundred and six letters to you while I was in Germany and you were in England, and you sent me two hundred ninety-three—which I still have in a box in the closet, by the way. Six years later I transferred to Arsenal to be with you and I haven’t regretted it even once, ever. I’ve spent thirteen years horribly in love with you and I want to spend the rest of my life horribly in love with you, too.” He pops open the box and tilts it so Charles can see. “Will you marry me?”

Charles is seriously crying now and Erik’s eyes are stinging, too, and he’s dimly aware of cameras flashing on them and Logan gruffly shoving a gawking bystander away, but all that matters in that moment is the way Charles shakes the champagne bottle and chokes out, “You’re such a romantic, such a stupid romantic— _yes_ —I love you and I just—”

He hurls himself down to throw his arms around Erik’s neck and Erik can feel him shaking, or maybe he’s shaking, or they both are, clutching at each other like they’ve forgotten how to let go. They’re going to be all over the tabloids tomorrow, Erik thinks distantly, and he’s never liked having their relationship air out in public but he can’t bring himself to give a fuck. This moment has trumped all others as the happiest of his life and he’s damn well going to enjoy it, every single second.

“Are you going to put the ring on him now or are you going to dry hump?” Logan asks from above them.

“Fuck off,” Erik growls at him but he’s smiling. Charles pulls back to snatch the box out of his hand and admire the ring himself. Erik watches him with a twinge of anxiety and says, “I didn’t know what you’d like so I went with something pretty standard. We can always go back and exchange it for another if you want—”

“It’s perfect,” Charles tells him, wiping his eyes. He slips the ring on his finger and laughs, his voice still a bit strangled. “I’m going to kick your arse later for making me cry on national television, you know.”

Erik laughs, too, and pulls him in for a kiss. Their lips have barely touched when a cascade of cold wetness pours down all over his head and shoulders and Charles’, and he looks up spluttering to find both ROW and England players dousing them with champagne, shouting their congratulations as they do.

“I,” Erik says, through a mouthful of bubbling champagne, “am going to take you home after this and fuck you wearing nothing but my medal.”

“Erik! You can’t say that on _television!”_ Charles hits him in the shoulder, fighting to look scandalized, but the wicked edge to his grin says he’s not disapproving at all. And the kiss he presses on Erik then is filthier than anything Erik could have said.

 


End file.
